Chapter 24
Danitalin
I knew the bomb had blown up successfully the moment it happened.
Pain blasted through my mind as a male died, raking talons of fire across my brain.
I screamed, my hands convulsed against the counter, and for a moment, I saw nothing but spots of bright light dancing across my vision.
My knees gave out, and I collapsed onto the floor as, in short succession, terrible pain blasted across my senses.
My throat, my neck—my neck a second time—I thought I was going to bleed out right on the spot.
“What the blazing stars is wrong with you?” Koratalin demanded, her tone sharp enough to cut.
She had remained behind after the guards had escorted Jaxin from the room, as if she didn’t believe I could be trusted on my own in here.
Some part of me had searched her mind and feelings for a hint of sisterly love and come up empty.
“Emotional backlash,” I gritted out, seeing no reason to deny the truth.
She could find the answer in a heartbeat anyway.
In fact, it would not surprise me if someone were here to inform her of what Jaxin had done in a moment.
“Four men just died.” It wasn’t over either; Jaxin’s mind was a powerful presence I was extremely attuned to.
I sensed him heading closer toward me, deeper into the ship.
“What?” Koratalin asked, and she came to stand next to me.
She bent at the waist toward me, but I wasn’t ready for her claw-tipped hand grabbing my arm to haul me upright.
The sharp, gem-crusted tips cut through the thin fabric of my shirt and straight into my skin.
The force of her pulling succeeded in getting me back to my feet, but it also tore the fabric—its collar peeling back along my shoulder and sagging sadly.
With the pain fading from my mind, my empathic gift throbbed in memory of the males who had died.
I knew Jaxin was just doing what was necessary to survive, but I wished it didn’t have to be so violent.
Then again, considering the things I could sense running through the minds around me, it made me want to run for cover and shower for an hour.
Perhaps he was doing the galaxy a service by removing some of these predators.
Lifting my chin, I looked my sister in the eye and wondered if Jaxin shouldn’t remove her from the galaxy too.
It would probably be a better place without her, but it went against every Aderian cell in my body to consider such a permanent solution.
Koratalin was furious, so mad she did not even notice what she’d done to my skin and clothes.
“Did you just sense four of my males die? How is this possible? Your pet with teeth did this, didn’t he? ”
“Probably,” I agreed, shrugging off her grip and straightening the flap of torn fabric on my shirt.
Koratalin’s eyes went to my shoulder and widened, her fury morphing into such a startled surprise that it caught me off guard.
She was always so in control that I’d never seen her bat an eye at anything.
With a sense of rising dread, I realized she was staring at my now-bared shoulder.
I dipped my chin and instantly realized what she’d seen: the silvery dots that circled my shoulder from where Jaxin had bitten me—something that might be considered a mating mark in other cultures, though neither Aderians nor Rummicaron had such a thing.
Koratalin was smart enough to instantly recognize those dots for what they were, though.
“You let him bite you?” she gasped, horrified.
It was that spike of deep revulsion—echoing through my empathy senses—that set my teeth on edge.
So far, I’d behaved. I’d played the part she expected me to play: distracted scientist with little to no interest in males or clothes, my research the only thing that mattered.
That mark, though, it gave everything away.
And her revulsion? It made me want to defend what was so incredibly beautiful and precious to me.
To have earned my mercenary’s heart—his love—despite all odds against such a thing ever existing?
I knew how incredible a gift that was, and I was not going to let her sully it.
“I let him make love to me,” I said. “We are mated in all the ways that matter. And Koratalin? He’s going to put an end to your operations, to this.
You’ll see.” I gestured between her and me, then at the workbench where my research was still spread out to give the appearance that I was doing anything.
Her comm went off then, and she answered it with a furious glare on her face.
I didn’t need to hear the other side of that conversation to know her people were updating her on what Jaxin was doing aboard the ship.
Her fury mounted with each word from her underlings, but I turned my back on her anyway and gathered my tablet and samples back into the bag.
I’d be ready to leave the moment my male showed up for me.
Koratalin hung up, took one look at my prepped bag, and her expression grew so tight it appeared frozen.
“He’s going to die. You might think you’ve won, sister, but you have no idea how powerful I am.
” She seemed to think I was no threat at all and began stalking from the room, her hand already on the laser pistol at her hip.
I did not think she planned to go to battle herself, but it certainly looked like she was ready to.
“I don’t think you understand what a Rummicaron is truly like beneath the emotionless facade.
Jaxin is a beast—my beast—and he’s going to do whatever it takes to save me.
Mark my words.” It felt so good to say that, especially because Koratalin had no response.
She always had an answer, a smart, quick way of talking back that I’d envied as a young student.
The cool big sister with the sassy mouth. She had no comeback this time.
With a hiss, she stalked from the hastily outfitted lab and ordered the guards to keep watch over me.
Fine, time to see if I was able to fight back, even if it caused some serious empathic whiplash.
Moving from the bench with the bag of research, I went to the table where I’d lined up jars and Petri dishes.
They looked like innocuous experiments, but each was a potent chemical preparation.
I fussed with them as if I were just doing work, and I felt the eyes of the males by the door burn into me.
Koratalin wasn’t taking any chances; she’d left six males inside the lab with me.
More were in the hallway, just arriving after having been summoned.
They must know that Jaxin would come for me.
As I monitored the minds of those around me, I knew they were right.
I could feel Jaxin steadily approaching as he made his way through the ship.
Bursts of pain radiated across my senses each time he likely encountered an obstacle, but he never faltered.
I was ready for him when he entered the hallway and engaged the gang of guards outside.
My hand was shaking as I added an agitator to one mix and sent a sudden noxious smoke up into the air.
It quickly filled the entire room with a thick cloud of foul but harmless fumes.
As males cursed all around me and nervously raised their weapons, I was ready with the next mixture.
Having memorized their locations, I did not need sight to pick the right ones.
A glass shattered as I tossed it on the floor, and a male crumpled as acidic fluid sprayed across his legs.
I groaned in pain myself, but fiercely persevered.
Locating a target by sensing his knot of emotions in the room, I made a quick overhanded toss, and another scream followed.
It wasn’t as deadly or as effective as Jaxin had been in the hallway outside, but when he entered moments later, it was to a room in chaos and half the males down or out.
“Little warrior,” he crowed, pleased, and rather than continuing the fight, he swept me into his arms and crossed to the counter where the packed bag with research lay.
I realized why he was able to move quickly and effectively, even in the roiling fog I’d created: he wore a helmet over his head.
It must have unfurled from the collar of his suit of armor, and it was very effective and clearly kitted out with more than just a face shield and oxygen. He had vision, even in the fog.
We were out of the lab moments later, his body easily jogging down the hall with me in his arms, his cannon hanging from one shoulder, and my research dangling from his belt.
“All we need is a hideout for a little while, as the Varakartoom catches up.” He took a few confident turns, but a comm call came even before we’d retreated into a safe hiding spot.
“Jaxin? We’re almost there. Can you provide a tiny little distraction while we board?
” an unfamiliar voice asked. Jaxin grinned, wide and feral, all his feelings out in the open.
Winking, he assured his friend that he could, and moments later, we barged onto the bridge of the ship.
Even though I’d known the moment I woke up that we were aboard a spaceship, it still took my breath away to see nothing but blackness and stars on the massive viewscreen at the front.
As the crew on the bridge turned and stared in shock at our arrival, Jaxin dropped to one knee, shoved me behind his back, and aimed his cannon.
The helm exploded in a ray of sparks and laser fire.
Beyond the pyrotechnics, on the massive screen, I saw a huge, sleek black ship drop out of FTL almost directly on top of Koratalin’s ship.
It looked far more menacing and dangerous than any ship I’d ever seen, the truest embodiment of a warship.
I didn’t expect the response the crew had after that: swift surrender, trembling fear—so intense and sickening it crawled down my spine and slunk like ice water through my veins.
“The Varakartoom,” someone whispered. “We’re doomed.
” Hands went up everywhere, giving Jaxin a wide berth.
They backed up and dropped to their knees.
He didn’t even need to tell them to disarm; they just began tossing knives and guns into a pile on the floor in front of us.
They thought they’d been in control of him, but with his ship arriving, they did not dare to fight back.
That’s how powerful their reputation was.
If I weren’t so sick from their fear, I might actually be impressed.
It was too bad my sister was not on the bridge to witness this.
I could sense her mind fading rapidly as she fled the ship in a shuttle.
So she’d survived, but I doubted she could do much damage after this.
She’d gambled, tangled with the Varakartoom—with my Jaxin—and lost. Good.
When Jaxin’s crewmates boarded the ship not much later and found us on the bridge, they encountered no resistance and no fight.
“Aw, damn it, Jaxin! You spoiled all the fun boarding this ship. This might be the most boring rescue I’ve ever done!
” one Asrai male said with such vehement accusation that I winced back.
The powerful feeling was rapidly followed by elated happiness.
“It’s good to have you back.” The male slapped Jaxin roughly on the shoulder.
“I see you’ve secured the payload, above and beyond,” another male drawled.
This one was a little terrifying, more so than the crazy Asrai and his even more intense, vibrating twin behind him.
A Naga: a rare species in the Zeta Quadrant, powerful and primordial.
His scales gleamed black, dotted with gold and green, while his golden eyes locked onto my face in a way that made me feel like prey.
“Payload?” Jaxin drawled, laughter bubbling in him and sweeping a cleansing tide through my ragged nerves.
Fear and unease washing away to make room for lightness and a feeling of safety.
“You mean my mate, Captain.” Right there, in front of Koratalin’s captured crew and Jaxin’s captain and crewmates, he swept me into his arms, tilted me back, and kissed me.
To the sound of cheers and stomping, one loud, sharp whistle, and a whole lot of shocked feelings, I let him.
I surrendered, and burnout on my empathy became an impossibility in the face of all that love.